"

"No. But we may see him some day."

When the four young hunters returned to the boats they found Simon
Lundy had hidden himself behind some bushes. He came out rather
shamefacedly and asked if they had met the negro.

"Yes; and he said he was coming to chew you up," answered Whopper,
with a wink at his chums.

"H-he did!" quaked Simon Lundy. "Sa-say, hadn't we better be
a-goin'?"

"We are not going to bother to look for him any more," said Snap,
who was disgusted with the cowardly and miserly farmer. "We are
going on our way."

"An' what be I a-goin' tew do?"

"Take Mr. Welby's boat back," answered Snap, shortly. "You can
row, can't you?"

"A leetle, yes."

"Then, good-by to you," said Shep, and leaped into the rowboat
containing the camp outfit.

"Hi! Don't leave me here alone!" ejaculated Pop Lundy, in fresh
alarm. "Shove the boat out into the stream."

This they did for him, and soon he was rowing away from the spot
as best he could, fearful, evidently, that the negro would come,
as Whopper had said, to "chew him up."

"He's about the limit!" was Snap's comment, when Simon Lundy was
out of hearing. "How I would love to play ghost on him!"

"He'd have a fit and die," added Shep.

The negro had not disarranged the boat in the least, so they were
soon on their way, Shep and Giant taking the oars. Snap leaned
back in the stern and stretched himself.

"Tell you what, fellows, our outing is starting with lots of excitement.
Wonder how it is going to end?"

"Perhaps it will end very tamely," said Whopper, who was in the
bow, munching an apple. "We'll strike several weeks of rain,
and not get a shot at anything larger than a rabbit. Then we'll
all take cold, and have to send for a doctor, and-----"

"Say, please heave him overboard, somebody!" burst out Giant.
"He's just as cheerful as a funeral. We are going to have nothing
but sunshine, and I am going to shoot two bears, four deer, seventeen
wildcats, eighteen-----"

"Hold on!" shouted Snap. "You have gotten into Whopper's story-bag,
Giant, and it won't do."

"Oh, I was fooling!" said Whopper. "We are going to have a peach
of a time. We are going to strike an old lodge in the wood---some
an old hermit once lived in---and find a big pot of gold under the-----"

"Bay window, near the well, just across the corner from the
barber shop, next to the school," broke in Shep. "Say, cut out
the fairy tales and get to business. Does an